Being a teacher in old-time Phoenix


Although I wrote "teacher" for many years on my income taxes, I never really considered myself a real teacher. I taught graphic design and computer software at a private college (the Art Institute of Phoenix) and at Glendale Community College. I walked in, turned on a computer and projector, and then stood back while the students worked on their projects in the labs, later did some grading, and really not much more. I thought of myself as an instructor, a trainer.

To me, real teachers are K through high school. They get my respect, and I would never begin to try to place myself in their category. These are true heroes, who deserve so much more than society is willing to give them, both financially and in respect. And as a time-traveler, I wonder about what it would have been like to have been a teacher in old-time Phoenix.

The photo at the top of this post is from 1892. It shows the Phoenix Grade School (which was at 9th Street and Washington) students and their teacher, Professor Wallom. What catches my eye right away is that he is a male teacher, which was very unusual for the time, and that he is called a Professor, not just Mister. Nowadays Professor is only used for the highest-ranking teachers in a college, but it's possible that the term was used differently in those days. I don't know. I had a few students sometimes call me "Professor", which always made me smile. I really wasn't a Professor, I was a "shop teacher", and proud to be, teaching a useful profession to students who could put it to work when they graduated.

Phoenix would have been a good place to have access to teachers, because of the teacher's college in Tempe, which is now called Arizona State University. For decades it specialized in teaching teachers. If you Google the Tempe Normal School you'll find out more about it.

And if you're a serious fan of Phoenix history, take a look at the names of some of the kids in the photo up there and they'll look familiar. Whether these kids are related to those famous names I don't really know, but Phoenix was a pretty small town in 1892, so chances are good that they were. My best guess, by the way, is that Minnie (number 30) is the daughter of the teacher. Small town.

Thank you for visiting my class in old-time Phoenix! No, there won't be a test.
Become a PhD (Phoenix History Detective) with Brad today on Patreon!

Click here to become a Patron!
History Adventuring posts are shared there daily including "then and now" photos, billboards, aerials, videos, and super high-definition photos of historic Phoenix, Arizona. Discounts for seniors, students, teachers, and veterans.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why cars in the future won't need stop signs, red lights, or stripes on the road

Image
Time-travel with me into the future. Where we're going, we'll still need roads, but our cars won't need the kind of stuff that human drivers need, like stop signs, or stuff painted on the road. And if you're already panicking that computers will take over, don't worry, they already have. The fact that you're reading this right now combines so much amazing computing power that it would have been unthinkable to anyone in the 1960s, or '70s, when I was a kid. Speaking of being in the geriatric age group, if you're like me or older, you took a lot of pride in knowing the rules of the road, such as what to do at a stop sign if four cars approach at the same time, the difference between a "yield" sign and a "merge" sign, or maybe how to parallel park. But calm down there old-timer, that type of knowledge will just be as quaint as how to use a horse and buggy is nowadays. Sorry! The best way to picture how traffic will flow in the future is
Read more

Why did Adolf Hitler always have such a bad haircut?

Image
As someone who has been interested in history since I was a little kid, I've always asked the most childish questions, and quite often never got an answer. As a kid, I was told to run along and play, and don't bother the grownups, so I set my questions aside to work on when I myself became a grownup. But some questions I really haven't found a satisfactory answer for, and get thrown away as I find myself learning the more important stuff. I now understand the grownups, but the kid in me still has childish questions like "Why did Adolf Hitler always have such a bad haircut?" The first question to ask is whether a particular style (whether hair, clothing, etc.) was in style at the time. The moustache was, and you can Google a photo of Charlie Chaplin, who wore the same style of moustache at the time, and quite stylishly. The wide lapels were in style in the 1930s, as was were the tall shirt collars and small ties. But the haircut wasn't - it's just awful. Me
Read more

Watching a neighborhood grow and change in Phoenix, Arizona

Image
I stopped to take a closer look yesterday at where the old Circle K had been in my neighborhood, which is a suburb of Phoenix. And it's got me to thinking about how much Phoenix grows and changes over the years, and how people feel about it. This particular neighborhood was built in the mid 1980s, when there had been only a smattering of houses and a community college (Glendale Community College, built in 1965). There are some houses that I can tell are from the 1970s, and a few even older, but what happened here is that the neighborhood suddenly appeared in 1985 or thereabouts. There are three shopping centers on the corner of 67th Avenue and Peoria - the one in the photo is called "Peoria Station", and it was designed to kinda look like a train station. The other three are called Westporte Village, Brittany Square, and Crossroads Plaza. I've lived in this neighborhood for a very long time, and no one ever uses those names, even though the signs are still up. But the
Read more